From time to time a story appears in the media about a student who was bullied at school (often for months and even years) and finally in desperation committed suicide. The story always provokes the same cycle of response:
Public shock and outrage as people ask “How could this happen?”
Upsetting media interviews with the deceased child’s family, friends and teachers
Calling in of grief counselors
The holding of special meetings of community stakeholders with high levels of emotional distress and blaming
Establishment of a “bullying task force”
Development of an anti-bullying program/curriculum, often with the input of “experts” with a program to sell
Institution of an anti-bullying program that usually relies heavily on providing information about bullying to students and faculty, and a training component emphasizing communication and negotiation skills enabling children to get better at “conflict resolution”
Establishment of a “zero tolerance” policy toward bullying
Reassurances from school leaders that the school is now safer
Disappearance of the bullying issue from the radar until the next bullying incident, which reactivates the above cycle
Most of the “anti-bullying” programs instituted in schools are largely ineffective (similar “anti-harassment” programs in the workplace have even been found to make things worse). And yet education leaders continue to use the same approach over and over and expect a better result.
Why?
How we FAIL
In an essay about how we fail to solve our important problems, I proposed three critical human tendencies that prevent us from succeeding as we might wish:
Remain captivated/enthralled by professional and personal beliefs and assumptions and “theories” that keep generating solutions that fail
Forget to gather data on the results of our solutions/plans to see if they worked
Resist changing our minds and plans again and again and …
While consulting with a group of school principals and superintendents, I discovered the following cherished beliefs and assumptions that are held by many educators and school leaders:
Bullies are basically “good kids”
Bullying is mostly the result of a lack of information/skill and can be largely prevented by educational means
Students have a fundamental right to an IN-school education no matter what
These shared beliefs are in fact a root cause of the ongoing failure to deal effectively with the epidemic of bullying in many schools. The notion that bullies are basically good kids ignores the harsh reality that in any population of children (and adults), there are some people (both male and female) who derive pleasure from causing physical and emotional pain to others and experience no remorse for doing so. We should call these people what they are: SADISTS.
It’s all about FEAR
When children and adolescents encounter a sadist, they tend to experience a strong blast of fear and try to protect themselves with strategies of avoidance and appeasement. When a child is attacked (either physically, verbally or on-line) or observes a peer being hurt by a sadistic bully, they tend to remain quiet and not report the attack to their teachers or parents so as not to draw the bully's attention to themselves.
The peer cultures of middle school and high school (where violent bullying is most prevalent) that value in-group loyalty and prohibit “snitching” only reinforce this code of silence. Even more disturbing is the tendency for peers to side with the bully and attack their victims and those who dare to speak publicly about the attack in order to appease the bully and avoid an attack on their own person.
When adults encounter a sadist, they also try to protect themselves by avoiding and withdrawing. Unfortunately, many school authority figures (superintendents, principals, counselors, teachers) who are responsible for maintaining a safe environment also try to avoid direct confrontation with sadistic students (as well as their parents who are sometimes sadists themselves!). They avoid direct confrontation by (1) engaging in too much process (talk talk talk …) rather than effective direct action and (2) over-relying on educational approaches (e.g. communication and conflict resolution/”empathy” training) rather than proven behavioral monitoring and control strategies for violence mitigation/prevention.
A better way forward
If communities want to stop bullying in their schools, all stakeholders (school leaders, teachers, students, parents) can take the following action steps together as an experiment:
Retire the word “bullying” and replace with terms like violence, attack (both verbal and physical) and harm to activate attention and engagement
Make SAFETY one of the core values of every school; clearly define what harmful behavior looks like (include physical, verbal and cyber modes of attack)
Build safe communication channels for students and adults to report harmful behavior directly to the school principal, both in-person and digitally
Develop clear protocols (decision trees, templates, checklists etc.) for the school principal and other relevant stakeholders to analyze and act on all incoming information about harmful behavior; engage parents, teachers, students and qualified experts in the field of youth violence to build and continuously monitor/improve these protocols
Provide superintendents with periodic (monthly?) reports from all district school principals about ALL incidents of harm, local action/response and post-intervention results for system-wide analysis and improvement
Recognize that many forms of sadistic attack are a CRIME and report evidence of all violent behavior to the local police; in many states, teachers are so-called “mandated reporters” and carry a legal requirement to report incidents of harm to a child to the appropriate authorities
Clarify the difference between the right to an education and the privilege of getting that education in a school with other students; move sadistic students into home schooling (using best distance learning technologies) or other appropriate environments if behavioral strategies fail to result in rapid improvement (currently it is the VICTIM of attack who usually has to exit their school)
These strategies have the potential to significantly reduce (though never eliminate) the incidence of harm and violence in our schools. Their successful implementation will require all stakeholders to be courageous enough to change their minds and abandon some of the cherished beliefs and assumptions and paradigms that are the root cause of their failure.
I've been trying to make people understand this difference for decades. 'Clarify the difference between the right to an education and the privilege of getting that education in a school with other student '